Seattle Bike Blog

King County Parks will close the Snoqualmie Valley Trail between the Riverbend neighborhood and Rattlesnake Lake from September 16 to October 4. Unfortunately, there will be no official detour or temporary biking and walking route. The closure is needed so crews can repair a timber trail bridge structure memorably named bridge 2178-44. The Snoqualmie Valley [...]

I am honored to learn that the Washington State Library's Center for the Book has selected my book Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars as a finalist for the 2024 Washington State Book Awards. It's one of six books in consideration for the general nonfiction award. The Washington [...]

Gone family bike camping. Be back next week!

The new bike lanes on MLK Jr. Way from S Judkins Street to Mount Baker Station feel like a shortcut. It's both more direct and more gradual than any of the alternative bike route options previously available. You no longer need to scale the cliffside up to Leschi to get between Franklin High School and [...]

The South Lake Union Streetcar broke down Friday, August 9, and nobody even noticed until King County Metro and SDOT sent out a press release about it the next Monday. Like, I searched through social media posts and could not find a single person mentioning issues riding the streetcar line the entire weekend that it [...]

The efforts by advocates at Central Seattle Greenways as well as readers like you have paid off. WSDOT announced that they are no longer planning to cut the Harvard Connection path to the planned Roanoke Lid as part of the SR-520 Portage Bay Bridge and Roanoke Lid Project. Following conversations with legislators, our contractor, project [...]

It is a great idea to redesign Leary Way NW and NW Market Street so they are safer for everyone while also connecting the Burke-Gilman Trail through Ballard, but SDOT's current design needs significant work in order to achieve those goals. SDOT has not released any new details about Councilmember Dan Strauss' Market/Leary plan since [...]

I took the new Lime Glider sit-down scooter for a test ride a few days before the company rolls 280 of them out in the U District starting for a trial. People can ride them anywhere they want within the Lime service area for the same price as their bikes and scooters, but Lime staff [...]

Pierce County hopes to design and construct a permanent replacement for the Spiketon Ditch Bridge on the Foothills Trail by summer 2025. The existing bridge was closed in November 2023 after an inspection found major structural degradation, and further inspections were so concerning that the county declared it an emergency safety concern and demolished it [...]

Crews have finished work on a project that makes it much easier and safer to walk or bike between the I-90 Trail and Mount Baker light rail station. Perhaps most importantly, the project made some significant crosswalk upgrades at the complicated and dangerous intersection of Rainier, MLK and Mount Baker Blvd near Franklin High School. [...]

Making a street safer does not increase emergency response times, a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives found. It is the first significant study on the topic, according to the journal article. Specifically, the study looked at the actual change in emergency response times on streets in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, [...]

Gig Car Share's fleet of pay-as-you-drive Priuses and their pre-installed bicycle roof racks will leave town December 27 as the AAA-owned company ceases all operations, according to an email I received as a Gig member. Geekwire reports that the shutdown is for the whole operation, not just Seattle. This is a huge blow to car-free [...]

First-year Seattle Mayor Charley Royer sent this photo to City Councilmember Jeanette Williams following the opening of the first section of the Burke-Gilman Trail in 1978. On it he wrote, Jeanette - If they get one with training wheels, I'll race you home. - Charley." Williams died in 2008, and now Royer died Friday morning, [...]

The trail across the 520 Bridge will be closed from 11 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Monday along with all the traffic lanes and ramps. The Montlake Bridge and Montlake Boulevard will remain open for regular travel. Kind of a bummer for the bridge to close for a summer weekend with such a spectacular forecast. [...]

Hey Tacoma folks, I'm headed your way August 3 along with Anna Zivarts, author of the excellent book When Driving Is Not An Option: Steering Away From Car Dependency. This will be the first ever Seattle Bike Blog event in Tacoma, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with you all at this Downtown On [...]

The large raven sculpture cawing at the start of the Interurban Trail after crossing from Seattle into Shoreline has been stolen. It is the second public sculpture to go missing in recent weeks after the beloved piece Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes was stolen from her place near the northwest end of the University [...]

Seattle's Vision Zero road safety redesign projects have not had a negative impact on local businesses, according to a study by University of Washington researchers published in the peer-reviewed journal Injury Prevention (PDF) earlier this year. Results suggest that road safety improvement projects such as those in Vision Zero plans are not associated with adverse [...]

After years of piloting solutions and testing how they impact transit service, SDOT is beginning work on a rebuild of the complicated intersection at 3rd Ave and Yesler Way in Pioneer Square that they hope will prevent the potentially deadly collisions that were unfortunately common there previously. The intersection of 3rd and Yesler has experienced [...]

Now that Mayor Harrell and the City Council have officially sent the $1.55 billion 2024 Transportation Levy (PDF) to Seattle voters in November, we can put all the debates about expanding the levy behind us and take stock of how it ended up. With $160.5 million for Vision Zero, $193 million for sidewalks and ADA [...]